Our Story

Wandering. Wondering. Wishing.

These are the seeds that grew into The Flower Press Company. When the world seems overwhelming, I’ve always escaped into nature. But the truth is, we don’t need to run away to the woods to find peace. All it takes is a few moments in the humble company of a buttercup from your back garden. That’s enough to bring you back to yourself, but somehow the beauty around us is so easy to overlook.

Pressing flowers gives you a reason to get outside and explore together.

It’s an opportunity to notice. An invitation to wonder. And then, as you gather around a table to sort through your findings, talking about your day, placing leaves and blossoms between sheets of blotting paper, you’re not merely preserving your botanical treasures. You’re making and preserving memories. Memories that have nothing to do with screens and everything to do with being present in this beautiful world.

That’s my heartfelt wish for you, and it’s the wish that eventually grew into our first run of handcrafted wooden flower presses. During one of my long, thoughtful walks in my home county of Kerry, I was struck again by how much healing and happiness there is to be found in nature, and I wished so much that I could share that tranquillity with others. I wanted to give people and their families a simple way to engage with the natural world. I’m not sure which good fairy gave me the vision of a flower press that day, but once it was there, it would not be ignored.

In the same spirit of exploration that calls me out into the woodlands and fields, I begin to wonder how it could be done. It was very important to me that the press itself was true to that wish. It needed to be a beautiful, lasting thing that would only get better with time: something to be used and loved and handed down through the generations. It needed to be made of natural materials, by hand, in harmony with nature and gentle on the earth we share. I called in the help of a good carpenter friend to help me experiment with prototypes, spent many happy hours learning about sustainably-sourced veneer and wood grain, and searched far and wide to find the heirloom-quality brass fittings that would age as beautifully as I’d imagined.

It took time, but it all came together so simply and naturally that I knew it was meant to be. And so it is.

Now, all of our flower presses are made in a small family-run workshop here in rural Kerry, with infinite care and an awful lot of love. One by one they go out into the world, carrying my very best wishes with them. I hope one finds its way to you.

Giving back to our land

The flower press for the irish wildlife trust.

It’s no secret that everyone in The Flower Press Company adores our Irish flora and fauna. Nature gives us so much, and it’s only natural that we want to give back to her however we can. We want to help protect our precious woodlands and hedgerows where we love to roam and forage. It’s our job to take care of the thickets and coastlines and boglands where our native wildflowers bloom and our native creatures make their homes. To cherish all the little corners of wildness that we still have and support the creation of more, so that biodiversity can flourish across this beautiful country.

That is why, when you purchase from The Flower Press Company, we donate 5% of all profits to the Irish Wildlife Trust, a conservation charity committed to raising awareness of Ireland’s rich natural heritage and protecting it for future generations.

Ann Marie

Throughout my life, and in all the work I’ve done, there have been two recurring themes.

The first is care: the joy of being all-in, of devoting yourself to something or someone, of making life better, more beautiful, and more all-around wonderful. The second is botanicals: most obviously in my many years as a florist, and also as a stylist and artist creating commissions and installations for private clients. They both come together in The Flower Press company, and for that I am truly grateful.

I have always been at my happiest strolling beneath the dappled light of beech trees, smiling at my dogs racing around, full of the joys that only being unleashed to run free in the wilds of a forest can truly give an animal.

We all need to be unleashed a little more often.

I feel most myself when spending time immersed in nature. It’s where I retreat from the daily noise of our life today when it all gets a little too much. You will always find me seeking out the precious green areas of every new city I visit.

It is where I do most of my creative thinking.

We have so much to learn from all that surrounds us in nature, and we need it now more than ever. It offers us a perspective that is difficult to find in a frantic screen-focused life. We can find comfort and motivation in nature’s strong resilience; its adaptation to our ever changing climate and its wonderful ability to transform with each season. It does not fight against the ageing and shedding of its leaves each year, but simply lets them go. It accepts that they will reappear in spring, burst into life and once again cast us in dappled light, offering us shelter for another year. Nature teaches us to embrace imperfection. It teaches us to forgive ourselves. It teaches us to care. It teaches us to hope.

My wish for The Flower Press Company is that it will encourage people to pause and appreciate the magnificence of the nature that surrounds us. We have all seen the strength of a tiny flower, pushing through a crack in a city pavement in its fierce need to survive and not give up. You have that strength too. You only need to connect with it.

Perhaps with my flower press slung over your shoulder, you will again go adventuring and exploring the wild edges and natural landscapes of your home, remembering who you are and how precious it is to be a part of this world.

Maybe you will…I hope you do.

Go a little softly wild.

“Tread softly because you tread upon my dreams”

― W.B Yeats

Hello Hazel

The wild Irish hare who hops through The Flower Press Company is a particular friend of mine.

In the way of all wild things, his true name is something I may never know. But in my heart I’ve always called him Hazel (after a distant literary cousin of his that he has never met, and who has also meant a lot to me over the years).

Hazel’s a survivor. He’s brave and he’s determined and he’s very much himself. He knows his place in the world and he occupies it wholeheartedly. Hazel stands for wildness and resilience, for the secret feral streak that runs within us all, no matter how hard the world has tried to tame us.